


Post-Mortem

by janiejanine



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janiejanine/pseuds/janiejanine
Summary: The Watch tries out a new, modern technique: forensics.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm only a little under halfway through the Discworld series, but I love it so much, I was thrilled with the idea of a crossover. I hope I've done it justice.

_This is ridiculous_ , Cullen thought for what felt like the thousandth time. You called an alchemist if you wanted something accidentally blown up, not if you wanted something deduced. He could be out on the streets, doing actual work; instead, he was stuck in a tiny room, watching Judith as she hunched over the table, up to her wrists in entrails.

 _Forensics_ , indeed.

“Well? Did you find anything?” he asked.

Her eyes, magnified to inhuman proportions by her protective goggles, brightened as though she were never happier than when rooting about in a corpse’s abdomen.

“Oh, yes. I found all kinds of interesting things, but the most important was _this_.” She held up her tweezers with a triumphant flourish and narrowly avoided stabbing him in the arm. “Sorry.” She pushed the goggles up. “It’s a piece of sausage. I found it in his stomach. He must have eaten it right before he died. Normally, I’d assume that was _how_ he died, but considering the size of the stab wound…”

“If we could figure out what was in it, we could trace it back to the seller,” he said. Every sausage in Ankh-Morpork had its own particular blend of questionable animal bits and mysterious seasonings, as distinctive as the lines on one’s palm. “Can you do that?”

“Someone would have to taste it.”

“I don’t suppose you–”

“That would be a job for a Watchman, don’t you think, Captain?” she said.

Apparently, civic duty only went so far.

There had to be someone on the Watch, someone with bowels of iron who’d grown up eating fried gristle from a stall, who could figure it out. Maybe he wouldn’t tell them where he’d gotten it.

“Thank you,” he said, and turned to leave.

“Wait! I should come with you, in case there are more clues,” she said as she tossed tools seemingly at random into a small, battered satchel.

“Are you sure?”

“It would be a nice change. Corpses almost never explode.”

“Almost?” He shook his head. “Never mind. All right. It can’t get worse.”

 _It can’t get worse_ was, of course, an invitation for _everything_ to get worse, right up there with _what could go wrong?_ and _I’m retiring tomorrow, care to see a picture of my family?_ The words drifted into the ether, headed straight for the ear of whatever vengeful god cared to listen. A statement like that simply couldn’t go unaddressed.

The two made their way through the city, unaware that Fate was standing behind them with a cudgel, winding up.

If they were doomed, they were doomed together. They didn’t know it yet, but it would be worth it.


End file.
